The products we become...

I am product of abuse. Physical. Emotional. Sexual. I say this because most of my life, I would never have admitted such a truth. I would have made it sound more colorful, delightful so that it would be more palatable to digest. I would have danced around the verity of knowing that the pain I have endured didn’t start with me. It began with a trembling urgency to break free, it lingered in exchanges that were damaged from survival, it is suspended in generations that will not allow the pain to visit long enough to heal it. I am a guest in my family. They just don’t know it.

 My family is accustomed to abuse. They would never admit it due to the levels of exposure they have experienced. The degrees at which you suffer at the hands of people that love you is directly proportionate to the length of time it will take you to begin to see the light of day. It will take you years to uncover the words that are glued to your back from abused mothers. It will take centuries to capture all of the men that were uncivilized because of the families they couldn’t protect. We needed solid families to represent the monuments of ancient kingdoms. We needed US. The truth is my family still needs to heal…individually + collectively.

This picture is not an apology. I own my healing + everything that it is taking me to acquire it.  My father prayed for me to be here + my mother is now forever grateful she conceived me. I am learning to claim the stolen artifacts. I gaze off in the distant often for no other reason other than I am the smile my mom desired. The gaze my father would have liked to get high off. I am the touch my mom needed. The beauty my father wanted to see in my mom, the caress my mom needed from my father. I am the love that my parents longed for being consistently curated through my healing.